Four

Cade

"W hat the hell is he doing?" I pull into the spot I always park in, only to have Nic pull in next to me. He's been following me the whole way here, and for some reason, I really doubt he got a sudden craving for Gerty's Grubhouse at six in the morning. Most likely, he followed me just to fuck with me.

Things have calmed way down in the two days he's been here. It's a little embarrassing, but him fucking choking me definitely did what he wanted––I got the message. I'm not proud of how much I let him get to me when he moved in all those years ago, but me hitting or shoving him just to shut him up––the few times he actually opened his mouth to speak anyway––wasn't out of the ordinary. So Nic doing that to me… well, I was surprised.

Surprised and maybe a little something else. I have no idea what it was I was feeling when his hand was wrapped around my throat. There were too many things all at once, making it impossible to pinpoint one thing. I mean, he choked me. Who does that? Besides, like psychos and serial killers. I look over at him when I hear his car door shut and decide that, yeah, that tracks. Fucking psycho .

He gets out and stands there for a moment. Just stands there like a weirdo, staring ahead at the front of the building. I don't expect it when he finally looks at me. I freeze, my mind and body buffering. It's not until he cocks a judgy as fuck brow at me that I react, face heating as I force my eyes away from him.

He is annoyingly hot, and I hate it. I hate it. My hookups with guys have been quick, nothing more than swapping blowjobs or handjobs in the backroom at Class or some other overcrowded club. So, being picky wasn't necessary, and outside of Liam, I'm not sure what my type is.

Nic looks nothing at all like my best friend. Liam is Hollywood pretty. Built and the kind of sweet that adds to his presence in a way that makes it a part of his appearance. Nic is the worst kind of fuckhead. He has issues, and I'm sure they're valid, but he makes it everyone else's problem. It adds an air of ugly to him that is too hard to ignore. Or it used to be.

Now he looks all hot and pisses me off and chokes me, and I'm just confused. Stepping out of my car has my belly dipping, angry anticipation bubbling all throughout my bloodstream as I get ready to face him.

"What are you doing here?" I sound fairly normal, so props for that.

"Working."

"That's—–" That's the most unfunny joke I've ever heard. It's so unfunny that part of me knows he's serious. He even has a nametag on his black button-up.

"Alex says that you're training me."

" Me? "

" You ," he mocks.

I make myself take a deep breath and stop the comeback that wants to fall out of my mouth all willy-nilly. He's usually calm. Even when he puts his hand around my neck, he manages to do it with an icy demeanor. It makes me look stupid when I'm the only one sputtering and red-faced.

So, I swallow every word I want to say and stalk inside with him on my heels.

∞∞∞

"T he new guy doing okay?"

I look at our hostess and frown.

"That bad, huh?" She laughs.

Actually, no. He's doing more than okay. And for whatever reason, that's the part that's irritating me. He does whatever I say, doesn't ask too many questions, and it's clear that he studied the menu. Plus, the clueless guests all love him. I'm pretty sure he's made more in tips than me. Fucking morons . They can't tell that an actual psychopath is taking their orders—don't see through his artificial smiles.

And honestly, I might be having a hard time seeing through them too. I don't know if I've ever seen him smile when it wasn't just something smug because he was irritating me to near death. So, these? These big, toothy grins and easy laughs?

I have to remember that he's the enemy. He once called my mom a whore to her face, and somehow it was me who got in trouble when I punched his arm. He called Liam and me homos every time Liam came to the house, and it stressed me out so much I just stopped letting him come over. Trying to fight over our shared bathroom as teens made mornings unbearable.

I realize that holding onto stuff he did as a teenager is a stupid reason not to like him, but there's also the part where he's just a horrible person. Rude and mean. Too bad his insides didn't have the same glow-up the rest of him did.

As a teen, he'd get mad that his dad and my mom were so nice to me all the time, but really, they coddled him. Let him get away with almost everything just because they were afraid to break his already fragile mind. And all the while, he acted like he was some mistreated prisoner—one with a really shitty attitude.

Glow-up aside, it's hard to get over the disdain I have for him.

But I'm not explaining all of this to Vivian.

"He's fine."

"He is that," she agrees, a coy little gleam on her face that just should not be there this early in the morning.

Ew . "He's gay," I grunt and then ignore it when she pouts.

She starts talking about how cool and beautiful his skin is––a weird thing to say out loud, in my opinion––and I decide that I'm over it. He's not all that. It looks okay. It's kind of cool, yeah, but it's not cool enough to actually say so.

And beautiful?

My eyes trail him as he makes his way up the kitchen window, taking him in. I've always––rather begrudgingly––liked his hair. It's pitch black, except where those solid white streaks are, and I think most people would agree that it's nice––it's definitely not just me. He mostly has his dad's skin tone, a tawny shade of warm brown, but there are random patches of skin that are paler than even Baby's is. Light and creamy. All of him looks so soft, which is weird considering how rough his personality is. But he looks…

I huff, rubbing tiredly at my face just as a small group of senior citizens walk in. I'm supposed to be working, not fixating on Nic.

It's not crazy busy, not yet, and after I realized that Nic could handle his shit, I gave him his own section instead of letting him work off of mine. I was hoping to ignore him.

And that's what I do. Only it's a lot harder than it should be, his quiet presence demanding attention when he's not even doing anything except his job, and it is so fucking infuriating. There's no reason to be so irritated, but Jesus fuck. He's just the worst.

We're not even halfway through the shift when I see him pick a fifty-dollar bill off one of his tables. "Is that a tip?"

"Yup."

He gives me a cocky smirk, and that's how it starts. How he starts it, the fucker. We spend our last few hours trying to one-up each other—racing to put our orders in before one another, greeting customers as they walk in, and just all around giving these oldtimers the service of their goddamn lives.

When I see an order of country-fried steak pop up, I know it's not mine. He put his order in first, and sitting right next to it is a stack of pancakes that definitely doesn't belong to any of my tables. Does that stop me from grabbing the steak? Absolutely not. I'm on a mission as I walk toward my table and end up clipping his shoulder as we pass each other.

"Watch it," he complains.

But I'm already setting the stolen breakfast plate in front of my guest, smiling as the man thanks me. I feel a little giddy as I walk back and hear him asking the cook where it is. The plan is to feign innocence as I crowd his space, but the look he gives me––brows pitched low and a few strands of solid white hair falling over his frosty grey eyes––triggers a jolt of raw joy in me and suddenly, I'm all for simply owning it. I can feel the excitement his anger instills as it flares in the middle of my chest, and I am so ready for this.

"Oh, I took that." I shrug, and when he scoffs, I go as far as beaming at him. "Whoops."

His full lips tilt at the corner, a tight half-smile paired with a humorless laugh that has my breath hitching. I don't even know why. That's all he gives me––a mirthless laugh and a sexy little pissed-off curve of his lips––and I swear it's the highlight of my day so far. Making him mad.

In the end, he wins. He counts his tips, but before he's even done, I can see that he's won. It's that fucking pretty privilege Liam is always talking about. Telling myself that it doesn't matter isn't all that effective. But still, it's a complete accident when I walk into him on the way to the crew room. It's happened a few times today, and in a restaurant setting, it's not uncommon. It's not a surprise when he gets mad, though. Tensions have been a little high—his fault, really but I haven't exactly helped the situation either.

"Watch it," I mimic his words from earlier.

"You're so fucking immature." He huffs, grabbing his keys and wallet out of the little cubby he dumped them in earlier.

I am immature. I can admit that, but I don't really see a problem with it. So, as I pass him again, it's not an accident when my shoulder hits his.

I expect the anger. I do not, however, expect it when he shoves me. My hands only just barely keep me from faceplanting into the cubbies.

"What the fuck , Nic?" I only just manage to turn around when the back of my head thuds against something hard, a warm hand keeping me there as I let out a hiss.

"Keep testing me, little brother."

" Don't call––"

His hand tightens, forcing me to move onto my tip toes. All my attention zeroes in on him, nothing but Nic plaguing my every sense. The tips of his fingers dig into a thick vein on the side of my neck, and I gasp, inhaling and somehow tasting him as I do. I can smell him—woody and laden with a spice that has my heartbeat thrumming. My nostrils flare, an attempt to find some more of that scent that ends up being nothing but a wasted breath.

I want him off of me. I open my mouth to try to speak, but he only presses harder over my Adam's apple, and then it's just a struggle not to gag as my hands clasp around his wrist. There's a pressure building in my temples––subtle, but it's there. Actual panic starts to take a physical form in my body, forcing a feeble little whine from between my parted lips that would embarrass me if I could only fucking think.

He's for sure overreacting. Nothing I've done today has warranted this. He's mental. Actually insane. He's telling me to leave him alone, but I haven't taken a breath in what feels like too long, so I can't listen. I try to move, but it only has him pressing into me, his body blanketing mine in an attempt to keep me still.

It's better , I realize. There's a swift, icy calm that tries to trick my nervous system into relaxing as his solid frame meets mine. It's real close to peaceful and so warm I close my eyes just to feel it.

And then it's gone. I'm left gasping for breath and coughing, gagging on oxygen as I try to blink through tears. He choked me. Blood rushes to my head so quickly I can hear it.

"You're––" Another cough cuts me off, and when my eyes come into focus, I give up. Gone . He left. Literally cut off my oxygen and dipped. He's certifiable. It feels a little like attempted murder. What a prick.

And for what? Because I bumped into his shoulder? Fucking nut.

I breathe deeply through the comedown and let my body regain awareness as I stand hunched over with my hands on my thighs. When I finally straighten up, I freeze.

I'm hard. My dick is fucking hard, pressed against my zipper in a way that hurts when I move.

"Hey, Cade."

My coworker's voice has me moving out of the room—unexpected and unwanted boner aside.

"How's it––"

"I gotta go." I hurry to leave, avoid looking at anyone as I walk through the restaurant, and hope like hell nobody looks at my dumb dick while it's being all sorts of dumb and refusing to relax.

I must have lost brain cells. I don't know how else to describe this.

I hesitate with my hand on my car door, grateful that my stepbrother's car is no longer here. I can't see my face all that clearly in the reflection on the window, but I can see enough to know that I'm glad he's not here to witness it. Face flushed and eyes glossy. I don't look at my neck. I don't even want to think about how I must have looked while he was giving me the marks that have to be there.

After long moments of nothing, I take a deep, well-earned breath as the pressure behind my zipper eases. Maybe it was adrenaline. A pissed-off fear boner. I was actually suffocating–– being suffocated. That's gotta have all kinds of crazy, one-hundred percent unwanted effects on a body.

And it's definitely not boner-inducing. Not the good kind of boners, anyway.

God. Nic sucks. I haven't been this confused since Liam embraced the five-inch inseam fad. But, hell, at least Liam is nice . I may not know what my type is when it comes to guys, but nice is usually a factor no matter the gender. Nice people do not choke others.

He needs to cut it out. He better stop putting his hand on my throat like that, or I'll… shit, I don't even know.

Come. I'll probably come.